| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Theaetetus by Plato: which he keeps his flock in the mountains is surrounded by a wall. When he
hears of large landed properties of ten thousand acres or more, he thinks
of the whole earth; or if he is told of the antiquity of a family, he
remembers that every one has had myriads of progenitors, rich and poor,
Greeks and barbarians, kings and slaves. And he who boasts of his descent
from Amphitryon in the twenty-fifth generation, may, if he pleases, add as
many more, and double that again, and our philosopher only laughs at his
inability to do a larger sum. Such is the man at whom the vulgar scoff; he
seems to them as if he could not mind his feet. 'That is very true,
Socrates.' But when he tries to draw the quick-witted lawyer out of his
pleas and rejoinders to the contemplation of absolute justice or injustice
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Duchesse de Langeais by Honore de Balzac: succeed in getting a glimpse of Armand. She did not dare to
utter his name now. One evening, however, in a fit of despair,
she spoke to Mme de Serizy, and asked as carelessly as she could,
"You must have quarrelled with M. de Montriveau? He is not to
be seen at your house now."
The Countess laughed. "So he does not come here either?" she
returned. "He is not to be seen anywhere, for that matter. He
is interested in some woman, no doubt."
"I used to think that the Marquis de Ronquerolles was one of his
friends----" the Duchess began sweetly.
"I have never heard my brother say that he was acquainted with
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Main Street by Sinclair Lewis: Score two!" But his chuckle was not so rotund, and he was
very attentive to the ammeter.
In a moment he was cautiously attacking: "That's a wonderful
boy, Will Kennicott. Great work these country practitioners
are doing. The other day, in Washington, I was
talking to a big scientific shark, a professor in Johns Hopkins
medical school, and he was saying that no one has ever
sufficiently appreciated the general practitioner and the
sympathy and help he gives folks. These crack specialists, the
young scientific fellows, they're so cocksure and so wrapped
up in their laboratories that they miss the human element.
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